Chapter Text
Octavia’s loudness was the first thing Lexa noticed when she moved into Everett Academy on that sweltering September day. With the help of an imposing senior in a smiley face t-shirt that declared his name to be Lincoln, Lexa lugged her new suitcase up three flights of the rubber coated stairs. She’d been holding out hope that up north would be a little cooler but if anything, the heat was worse. The humid air clung to her body and she was pretty sure she smelled absolutely terrible.
Lexa’s dad hadn’t been able to bring her to tour the campus, so she’d only seen the dorms in the few available pictures online. Maybe this would only be true for move-in, but the dorm was impeccably clean. The grey carpets were vacuumed and the off-white walls looked like they had been scrubbed for hours. Light wooden doors with either one or two rectangles of colored paper lined the hallway. Most of the doors were open with large families buzzing about moving in their little angels, but Lexa could read the few closed doors as they announced that their new residents were from California, or Taiwan, or Ghana.
Even though the school had announced itself to be international, Lexa had assumed that meant a few kids had come from Canada or Mexico. Weren’t people supposed to go abroad for college? Not high school. Or at least she had thought.
“Is anyone local?” she asked Lincoln before she could stop herself.
Lincoln raised an eyebrow. “You mean like the day students?”
Lexa blushed. “Right, I forgot for a second.”
“Don’t tell them that. They’re constantly whining about us leaving them out while they go to brunch with all their outside friends and then go shopping in the city.”
She continued along the hall rolling her suitcase behind her. Lincoln probably should have left at this point. She didn’t need his help with her suitcase and her only other baggage was her bedding, backpack, and fan, all of which she could carry on her own in one trip, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that. Maybe it was a little pathetic that he now counted as a familiar face, but apparently that was what her life had come to.
Lincoln rested a warm hand on her sticky arm. “To answer the question you didn’t ask, not everyone here is an international jet setter and even the ones who are aren’t too bad even if they can be a lot sometimes.”
Lexa looked at the room number on the little yellow envelope that contained her roomkey and ID. If the numbers on the walls were to be believed, her room was just down the hall. The door was open and a bright voice issued commands to whichever senior had gotten stuck helping her.
Lexa exchanged a look with Lincoln and stepped through the open door.
The room was surprisingly well lit with two large arched windows in the center of the room with a desk and a bed on either side of the room. On the desk to Lexa’s left, sat a brunette girl supervising a sweaty man who was in the process of moving a dresser. As soon as Lexa and Lincoln entered the room, the girl fell silent and the man put down the dresser.
“You okay, O?” the man asked, slightly out of breath.
Lincoln nudged Lexa forward. “Hello,” she said.
The other girl leapt off the desk and bounded over to Lexa. She stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Octavia.”
“Lexa.”
Octavia nodded like this settled everything. “I claimed that bed.” She pointed to her right. “That okay with you?”
Lexa looked up at Lincoln for some sort of guidance. He shrugged. “Fine.”
“We’re just rearranging some stuff if you want to move anything around. The default settings are kinda lame.”
The man cleared his throat. “We?” If the sweat stains on the back of his shirt were anything to go by, he had been doing most of the heavy lifting.
Octavia rolled her eyes. “I told you, I’m supervising.” She turned her attention to Lincoln. “Are you a senior?”
Lincoln nodded.
“Cool. This is my brother Bellamy. He’s twenty two.”
Bellamy wiped his brow with his shirt. “O, let her finish moving in please.”
Lexa took that as an out and left Octavia’s energetic renovation to get the rest of her things from the common room downstairs. As they gathered up her things, one of the dorm parents called for Lincoln.
She assured him that she didn’t need any more help and thanked him for helping her settle in. Before he left, he put a hand on her shoulder.
“You’re gonna be okay.”
No she wasn’t. She forced a laugh. “I hope.”
Lincoln left Lexa to figure out how exactly to manage this second trip. She’d never traveled beyond an aunt’s house only an hour away from her own, so she’d had to use some of her money from working at the gym to buy a suitcase for today. The rest of her luggage was made up of whatever they’d had as she and her dad scrambled to pack last night. A stained duffle held her bedding, a plastic bag held her fan, and her olive green middle school backpack held everything else that they had bought at the Target back to school sale.
The other bits of luggage still in the common room were all in the matching sets that she used to see in the magazines in her aunt's bathroom. One of them even had little LVs all over it as if a high schooler could possibly need anything that nice. She hustled out of the common room and back into the rubber covered stairs that smelled of disinfectant and sweat.
Back on the third floor, she couldn’t help but notice just how many families were there. There were brothers and little sisters and of course sets of two parents. After the administration had assured Lexa and her father that there was a protocol for unaccompanied move-in, Lexa had thought she would be in good company with the rich kids whose parents couldn’t bother to show up, but apparently even those parents didn’t miss move-in. Probably because they could actually afford to take a day off of work.
Lexa pushed down the pang in her chest––a childish part of her hated that her father wasn’t there to drop her off like everyone else there. But those feelings were just that––childish. Her dad wanted to be there, he just couldn’t be. Any feelings of hurt or sadness were illogical and unnecessary.
The door to her room was closed when she got there. Lexa put her bags down and tried to comb her fingers through her hair which had become frizzy through all her climbing. She should have put it up in a ponytail this morning but she’d thought down would make a better impression. With all the well groomed parents, siblings, and students around, she regretted dressing for the heat in a pair of ripped black shorts, an olive vest top, and ratty trainers.
She was about to open the door when she heard Bellamy and Octavia talking inside.
“My grades are gonna blow yours out of the water.”
“You wish, O.”
Octavia’s voice became serious. “I’m going to take this seriously, Bell. I promise.”
“I appreciate that, O, but just because mom made sure I had to be an adult in highschool doesn’t mean you should too.” Bellamy sighed and Lexa began to wonder if she should go cold call on some of her new neighbors or something to avoid further violating the privacy of the girl she would be living with for the next nine months.
“Look, this scholarship is a great opportunity and I’m so proud of all that you did to make it happen, but you should enjoy what you worked for.” He paused and Lexa considered opening the door and pretending she just got there. “That being said, I know you. Don’t go crazy or do anything I wouldn’t do. Have fun does not mean get arrested.”
“How do I not do anything you wouldn’t but still have fun? Aren’t those mutually exclusive?”
“Yeah, yeah, okay, smarty pants.” His voice became muffled. Maybe he was hugging her. “I’m gonna miss you.”
At this point Lexa already felt like too much of a creep, so she retreated down the hall as they said their goodbyes. She let a few minutes pass while watching families and upperclassmen lug heavy boxes and suitcases around and trying to ignore that she and the rest of the hallway were starting to smell like the locker room at her old gym.
Octavia’s brother slipped out the door of their room and Lexa pretended that she hadn’t just been standing a little ways down the hall. Back in the room, she’d been so overwhelmed by Octavia and everything going on in general that she hadn’t really looked at him properly.
He was darker than Octavia with freckles and curly hair. He towered over Lexa, reminding her of the guys she trained with at her old gym except instead of workout clothes, he wore neat, dark jeans and a t-shirt. Lexa knew that sort of outfit. She’d worn one like it to her interview in some desperate attempt to convince her interviewer that she, a scholarship kid, was not some poor, scholarship kid.
Bellamy rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, didn’t mean to exile you. I’m going to head out.”
Lexa rocked back and forth on her feet, not sure of what to say. “It’s fine.”
“See you later then, I guess.”
Lexa nodded.
Bellamy looked contemplative for a minute and then leaned down. “I’m glad someone like you is her roommate.” He straightened up and continued along his way.
Lexa frowned and trudged into her new room.
Octavia now sat on her bed rather than the desk. While Lexa had been gone, either she or Bellamy must have fitted the bed with a set of plum sheets and matching pillow case. Some of the furniture may have also been moved but Lexa hadn’t really had the chance to take note of its original position.
“You’re a sophomore too, right?” Octavia asked, her voice a little more subdued than it had been when Lexa first met her. Her legs swung back and forth at the edge of the bed and her fingers dug into her new sheets.
Lexa nodded. “I like that color,” she said, pointing to the sheets.
“Thanks.” Octavia picked chipped green nail polish. “Do you need help with yours?” She looked up when she asked and stilled her feet as if preparing to leap up.
On one hand, Lexa hadn’t needed help to make up a bed since she was four. On the other hand, WikiHow had told her that the way to make get along with your prep school roommate was to be vulnerable and bond through activities. Making up a bed sort of counted, right?
“Sure.”
Octavia leapt up and made for the duffle Lexa had dropped beside the bare bed. She unzipped it and began to rummage through it without even looking up at Lexa. Lexa resisted the urge to rip the duffle away from Octavia. The WikiHow hadn’t said anything about using violence when your roommate started going through your stuff. Maybe the same website that has at least twenty articles about becoming a mermaid wasn’t the best source, but Lexa didn’t exactly have the luxury of choice.
Making up the bed didn’t take nearly as long as Lexa had assumed it would. For all her bossieness, Octavia was actually fairly competent. In exchange for her help, Lexa offered to help Octavia finish unpacking.
Octavia looked around at the scant furnishings on her side of the room. “Um, nah. This is it.” She looked back up at Lexa and blushed. “I mean, that’s it for now. Bell insisted we should wait until after I moved in to really go shopping. Don’t want to bring too much, you know.” She turned away and busied herself with putting her clothes into the bizarrely shallow drawers.
For the first time since she’d left home that morning, Lexa laughed.
Octavia whipped around, eyes blazing. “What?” she demanded.
Lexa giggled. She was probably destroying her only chance at making a friend that was actually like her here but she couldn’t stop smiling and giggling. Everything was pouring out of her at once.
Octavia narrowed her eyes and her chin trembled. “Something funny to you?”
“Sorry,” Lexa forced out. “It’s just, how can you look at me, and all this,” she gestured to her stained duffle, mismatched sheets, and plastic bags, “and think I’m the one you need to say that shit to?”
“I don’t understand.”
Lexa straightened up and took a step towards Octavia. “You don’t need to pretend you’re rich, not to me. I’m not exactly in a position to judge you.”
Octavia huffed. “I’m not poor.” She crossed her arms and flopped down on her bed.
“Never said you were,” Lexa sat down on her own, significantly less purple bed.
“Yeah well don’t say it to anyone else either,” Octavia said, staring up at the ceiling and playing with a tassel on one of her pillows.
“I won’t.”
They sat in silence for a while, the heat sitting on Lexa’s chest like an old cat.
“You don’t need to be poor to feel poor here.”
Octavia snorted.
Lexa worried for a moment that she had finally stepped over the line, but Octavia popped up from her bed and muttered something about putting her clothes away before they wrinkled.
At five, the head of the dorm, Indra, retrieved Lexa and Octavia to go to dinner. Lexa couldn’t help but feel a little awkward surrounded by around twelve other girls in the common room of her new dorm before they all left for the dining hall. She knew the school had far fewer new sophomores than they did freshman and she couldn’t help but wonder just how many of these girls were actually a year younger than her.
After the effort of meeting Octavia and Lincoln, Lexa was a bit tapped out as far as introductions went. Octavia did not seem to share her fatigue, immediately turning to the person standing next to her and sticking out her hand.
“Hi, I’m Octavia.”
While Lexa would have personally been a bit taken aback by such a greeting, the girl looked entirely accustomed to this sort of behavior. “Josephine,” the girl replied.
She looked exactly how Lexa expected a prep school girl to look. Her blonde hair fell just beyond her shoulders. She wore a white cropped t-shirt and one of those short, pleated schoolgirl skirts that swished as she moved. Octavia probably would’ve kept talking to her if Indra hadn’t called over the group of girls that they were leaving.
The walk to the dining hall was the first time Lexa let herself take in the campus. Their dorm opened onto a narrow road that encircled an area Indra called the quad. Lexa thought it looked more like a circle than whatever a quad was supposed to be. Red brick buildings with stark white columns were dotted around the quad. Everything looked so expensive. Lexa wanted to hurl. But maybe that was just the ever present humidity clinging to Lexa’s arms like a shirt with too tight sleeves.
Indra led the gaggle of girls through the double doors of the dining hall, up wide stone stairs, and into a brightly lit room with serving stations lining the walls.
Lexa loaded her plate with spaghetti and meatballs from one of the serving stations. Despite everything she’d heard about the school, part of her had been convinced that the dining hall would be like a three star restaurant with servers in ties and dishes she couldn’t pronounce. The familiar taste of spaghetti angered Lexa just a little. She mourned the lost opportunity to complain about overly fancy food.
Each dorm had been assigned a long rectangular table to sit at. Lexa sat at the end of the table next to Octavia who chatted with that girl Josephine from earlier and another girl, Harper, who Lexa assumed was Josephine’s roommate. Lexa didn’t really listen to them and instead ate in silence.
She couldn’t help but watch the other girls as she did. At least half the girls looked like Josephine. They wore simple but expensive looking clothes with neat haircuts. Towards the end of the table sat a group of three girls speaking in rapid Chinese to each other. Their wrists dripped with bejeweled gold bracelets and Lexa had a sneaking suspicion that each one of their outfits cost more than her dad made in a year.
After dinner, there was ice cream in the dorm common room. One of the other dorm parents, Ms. Diyoza had planned for there to be name games and the like while the girls ate their ice cream, but they all pointed to the impending three days of orientation and begged to be allowed to watch a movie instead.
Octavia and two other girls rifled through a stack of DVDs next to the large flatscreen sitting above the large fireplace on the center of one of the walls of the common room. After a bit of spirited debate, the girls settled on Mama Mia.
The common room was far larger than Lexa had anticipated. Beyond the giant fireplace, the walls were lined with cushy sofas upholstered with tan leather. Several ottomans dotted the room as well as a few giant armchairs. Obviously the damn school was fancy but Lexa hadn’t anticipated the furniture of a single dorm’s common room being far nicer than anything she and her father could ever hope to have in their home.
Lexa curled up on one of the armchairs far away from the tv. She had never seen Mama Mia before but she certainly wasn’t minding the amount of Amanda Seyfried in the movie.
During a musical number featuring Amanda in a bathing suit, Octavia turned to Lexa from her spot on the couch at a certain point and asked, “Wouldn’t you hook up with Sky if you had the chance?”
Lexa swallowed and stared at the shirtless, dark haired man on the screen.
“No.”
Several of the other girls let out exclamations of shock and disapproval.
“Why not?” Octavia demanded.
“He’s not my type of guy,” Lexa said.
She ignored the shame that welled up in her chest at the lie. It was hardly logical to tell the girls she would be living with for the next year that she was a lesbian, especially after everything she’d been through the year before. She’d read enough articles that summer about being queer at prep school to know that no matter how accepting girls say they are, everything changes once they’re living with a lesbian.
Lexa lay on top of her sheet that night, her fan blowing directly onto her damp skin. “Octavia?” she whispered into the darkness.
Octavia hummed from her bed.
“Have you ever met anyone like those girls?”
“Like which girls?”
Lexa paused. Octavia had to know what she meant. Just because she was able to make nice with them didn’t mean she was familiar with them.
“No, I haven’t.” Octavia finally said. “Do you think everyone is like that?”
“I don’t know,” Lexa said.